Reddit rebellion: several subreddits in lockdown after popular admin fired

Reddit is currently in meltdown, following popular admin /u/chooter (or Victoria) removal from her position at the company, for unknown reasons. Victoria was the Director of Talent at Reddit and helped moderate almost all the Reddit “ask me anything” posts.

In response, /r/IAmA, /r/AskReddit, /r/Books, /r/Science, /r/gaming (full list here) and a whole host of other major subreddits have went private, leading to a lack of front page content on Reddit.

According to several moderators in charge of these subreddits, Victoria was the only contact inside Reddit for setting up and moderating AMA threads. Without her, most AMAs have been cancelled, due to lack of direct contact with the AMA provider.

The site-wide rebellion is for more than just Victoria, with several moderators claiming the staff at Reddit do not appreciate the thousands of hours unpaid volunteers put into keeping subreddits clean, safe and functional.

This comes a few weeks after several subreddits were banned due to new harassment rules, leading to several front page posts asking for the resignation of CEO Ellen Pao. During the new development, Pao has said she cannot comment on individual contracts, as did co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who is handling AMA requests along with a new team.

The growing worry on Reddit is the new staff plan to change the site by adding new rules and system features that add more control to the admins, and less control to the users and moderators of subreddits.

Others believe Reddit’s new goal is to make more revenue, and by banning some of the murky parts of Reddit it will give the company a better advertising portfolio.

Whatever is happening at Reddit, it is clear the admins and leaders are not being transparent enough to keep users happy. Moderators have not commented on when they intend to revoke the private setting, although admins could feasibly take over and set the subreddit as public, if things become too out of hand.